Bonita

Bonita is on Farm Road 1815 nine miles northeast of Montague in northeastern Montague County. It was established in 1886, when the Gainesville, Henrietta and Western Railway extended its tracks through the area and was named either for Bonita Hansen, the daughter of an engineer on the rail line, or for the Spanish word bonita, reportedly suggested by a surveyor who was taken with the area's beauty. In 1887 the community received a post office. By 1900 the population was 300, and Bonita had become a shipping point for cattle and cotton. In 1906 a bank was chartered locally. Several fires destroyed much of the community, and U.S. Highway 82 bypassed Bonita when it built from St. Jo to Nocona. Bonita declined from a population of 218 and seven businesses in the 1930s to eighty residents and three businesses by the late 1950s. The post office ceased operations in 1967. In 2000 the population was twenty-five.